Constitutional reform, again
Friday, May 06, 2005
The second in the series of protests demanding constitutional reform was held today, in the empty ground next to Dana Mall (read about the first protest here). When the plan to hold the protest was announced a couple weeks back, it seemed as though the government would once again deem it illegal. However, a few days the Interior Ministry gave the go-ahead for the demonstration, so everything went smoothly today without any trouble.
Today's protest definitely felt smaller than the first one, but it was still very big. I'm no good at guessing numbers anyway, but it was especially difficult today because the venue was a perfectly flat open ground, with very few vantage points to make a decent estimate. If I were to hazard a guess I might say around 10 or 12 thousand, but don't quote me on it. It would be better to wait a couple hours for the news agencies to publish their reports. I've made another one of those panorama images to give you a sense of the scale, but I wasn't high enough to capture the full depth of the crowd. Click on the icon below to see it:
What was very significant about this protest though was that it was not a one-party show dominated entirely by Al-Wefaq, like the first one. As I suspected might happen, all of the four boycotting political societies made their presence known this time. At last. This was the first major protest in a long time that did not have a sectarian feel to it. So even though today's demonstration was smaller than the last one, for me it was more significant because it was so much more representative of the population. I do hope this will continue to be the case throughout the rest of the campaign. Below you can see a cluster of, I believe, NDAS supporters:
Incidentally, the International Crisis Group today released a report (hat tip to Mahmood) that contains an excellent overview of the political situation Bahrain, as well as urgent recommendations to all parties about what needs to be done to defuse the situation. Among the recommendations to the government is to reduce the legislative authority of the parliament's appointed chamber (the key demand of today's protest). I really hope that both the government and the opposition take the recommendations of this report seriously and show some courage.
More photos:
Before the protest started a cop issued parking tickets to some of the demonstrators for parking their cars on the road island, so a small argument ensued. (Take a good look, because this is one of the rare chances you'll get to witness traffic cops in Bahrain actually doing something).
This protest had a very Woodstock-ish feel to it (not that I've ever been to Woodstock). As you can see in the photo below the protest took place in a big open ground, and people came walking in from all directions. Rather than an agry march, today many people came and sat down on the ground or a chair, and listened to the speeches and talked amongst themselves. The weather was great and the kids especially seemed to enjoy the opportunity to run around in the big open space or build castles in the sand.
Some women:
In the cartoon below, on the right side it say "The Nineties" and shows a person trapped in a bottle (The height of the civil uprising in Bahrain tooke place during the 1990s). In the left panel it says "The days of reform" and shows a person in a bottle with the 2002 Consitution blocking the opening.
NDAS president Ibrahim Shareef being interviewed by a reporter from Al Jazeera television:
Speakers at the podium:
This entry was posted
on Friday, May 06, 2005 at 5/06/2005 07:41:00 pm. Permalink
5/07/2005 10:24:00 am
good coverage as always Chan'ad, thanks once again.